Day zero
by TheDuqq
Summary: Two friends escape the humdrum life of the British Isles and escape to the Deep South wherein they plan on how to survive the end of mankind. What may have started as a joke suddenly becomes the fight to survive against hordes of undead.
1. Chapter 1

Drops of warm, bitter alcohol fell from Danny's lips like the first flakes of snow in winter, and splattered on his dirty shirt, nestling themselves among various other stains and splashes. The bark of the birch tree he sat against was rough and hurt his back to lean too heavily against it, but the shade created by its canopy was welcome on a day like today in Florida; a hot, muggy, sluggish day with humidity in the 80's and the temperature increasing by the millisecond. He let his head rock back into the trunk of the tree, and allowed himself to relax into the soft, mossy ground under him, the can was too light to have liquid in it any longer he decided, and so discarded it over a nearby fence into a neighbouring wheat field. Fingering the ground for the other two in their holder, he couldn't open his eyes for all the strength in the world, and eventually found them before struggling with the ring pull, popping the seal, and lifting another, sun-warmed can of cheap beer to his cracked lips. Despite the massive, sweaty, wet-heat, Danny enjoyed the absolute loneliness of days like these, and a day spent alone, getting drunk as anything, listening to the birds and crickets blurting inconceivable noises into the sky, somehow appealed to his British nature. In England, he had gone through his life as lazy and drunk as he was now in the gorgeous Floridian sun. In his twenty-forth year now, he wondered if he'd wasted his time doing as he had done, but right here, right now, it just didn't matter.  
"OI! Numb-nuts!" A familiar voice trailed across from the house "You've got to see this…" Slowly, Danny attempted to solidify his thoughts and make his legs work again, before getting up with the remaining can in its collar, and the other in his free hand. He stumbled with pace toward the wooden-panelled house and the white outline of the door, trying hard to thread his seemingly massive body through the door, even though he knew he could easily fit through. "Finally, was wondering if I was going to have to help you in this time". Jay had been Danny's best friends since the beginning of High School, and when one of his Uncles had left an enormous, hand-built house, and barn out in the middle of the Floridian heartlands, Danny had been the first person to call and get on out of his hum-drum life in England, jumping at the chance to put his past indiscretions behind him, and leaving for Jay's uncles' farm at once.  
The News that Jay was directing Danny to; was another report on the so-called 'Bath Salt Zombies' – people trying to get a legal high from eating cheap bath salts, however a high was not the only thing people had developed since the crazes' humble beginnings. Two-hundred-and-fifty-two recorded cases of 'unexplained cannibalism' in the southern-most states of America had been reported since the year 2012, everything ranging from an unprovoked, naked attack on a homeless man, in which the victims' forehead, cheek, brow and nose had been eaten to the bone, and had taken three shots to put the man down, to smaller attacks on animals and butchers' freezer rooms, leading to 'cannibalistic injuries to the upper body' of victims. The latest such news report has said: "~a forty-five year old male was seen stumbling down Main Street in the town of Meridian in Mississippi, police officers trying to help the man ordered him to stop and answer a few questions. The man ignored their requests and headed toward a twenty-seven year-old female waiting at an ATM machine. He gathered pace, before leaping at her and attempting to bite at the women's' shoulders and neck, he was then fired upon four times before he released his grip and slumped to the floor, the woman was pronounced dead at the scene through excessive blood-loss although the coroner could see 'no way that a person should behave this way, and bite with such pressure' ~" Jay flicked the TV off and walked over to a large, full-colour map of Florida and several other southern states, backed on a corkboard over the fireplace and placed a red-headed pin into Meridian. "Another one Dan, I'm starting to get a bit jittery about all this, I mean Meridian isn't THAT far away from us, where will it strike next" His nerves beginning to get the better of him, as his words began to speed-up and come out of his mouth faster than he could makes sense of them. Calmly, Danny attempted to talk and reassure his dear friend that everything would be okay, but instead belched loudly and said rather louder than he expected; "Well, that's the thing about a mut… muuut… mutatatation, they're a bit random".  
"Could you try that sentence again, hopefully when you're a bit more sober" Jay retorted, coming to sit in his chair and inviting Danny down to his.  
"Aye" Danny somehow managed to form in his drink-addled mind, gesturing to Jay with his last beer. "If you're offering" Jay reached out and grabbed the warm vessel before cracking it open and pouring the bitter fusion of 'hops' and American tap water they tried to pass off as beer here in America, down his gullet. "Do you ever miss England, Dan? I mean I know you always said you hated it, hated yourself there. How it made you pretend to be intelligent to seem like you fitted in, and how the weather always sucked and all that, but, do you ever miss the smell of kebabs on a Saturday night? Not even the sound of a crowd of football supporters singing on the way home from the pub that night? What about the taste of REAL Cornish ice cream not just yellow vanilla?" Jay sighed loudly into the can and looked out at the sun setting over the Floridian forests, realising that Dan was asleep long before he had even started talking. Taking another swig, Dan snorted in is sleep and Jay chuckled to himself; "yeah, me too. Goodnight man."


	2. Chapter 2

'God-damn I need coffee' Dan thought as he awoke in his chair. He wanted to shout for Jay, but knew he was so hung-over he wouldn't be able to stand anything that loud in the morning, so instead hoisted himself out of the comfy, leather seat and set out on a voyage toward the kitchen, dodging tables, pizza boxes and walls on his way, only to find a cup of hot java waiting for him next to his laptop on the table.  
"Sleep well?" Jay smiled behind his paper, before adding: "coffee, two sugars, with Irish cream, oh and by the way could you grab a few boxes of twenty-two calibre light rifle, forty-four magnum and twelve gauge, double-ought buck – we're running out again"  
Danny gripped the mug and lifted the piping hot liquid to his lips taking a gulp of the thick, creamy, but ever-so-slightly bitter coffee. It was the perfect temperature, as always, and slid down his frayed and sore throat like a tar spill over a rough road, soothing everything instantly. His headache even started to dissipate, and the fire of the whiskey caught the pilot flame in his heart  
"thanks man, I needed that like you wouldn't believe, I'll stop by Maggie's and grab a few boxes, need anything else?" he sighed as he stood up as fast as he dared, collecting his coat from the dining-room chair and heading for the door, mug in hand.  
"Ermm, I don't think so, but there's a twenty on the side if we're out of beers" Jay replied from behind the paper, still engrossed in a story about a woman who found the original, master floppy disk of Ratchet and Clank 2 in a bin in West Virginia.  
"Will do" Danny called as he grabbed the twenty dollars and closed the door behind him, the late morning air was hot, but not uncomfortably so.

He hopped down the steps to his car; a pristine restoration of a 1965 Pontiac GTO in candy purple, nothing was out of place, no mistakes, and everything from the interior to the engine was his. Danny caressed the bonnet as he walked up to the door of the beast, as the light glinted from the chrome, and the smell of hot, natural leather rose from the windows, he gripped the blistering hot handle of the car door and slipped himself in. This was his favourite place to be in the whole world; he slid his tatty converse trainers onto the brushed aluminium pedals, and moved his hands lovingly over the hand-made walnut steering wheel. 'Hey sweetie, did you miss me?' he thought to himself, and smiled as his hand twisted in the ignition and four-hundred-and-twenty-six cubic inches of Detroit steel roared like a polar bear mother protecting its children. He laughed and a wide smile spread across his face "today's going to be a good day".  
On the open road with no cars heading either way, and no police or signs coming up, Danny felt a mischievous smile creep across his face 'Yes' he thought, and pushed his foot gradually into the carpet, the beast snorted and reared like a stallion, as the needle on the tachometer rose and rose. Forty, fifty, sixty-five, eighty, one-hundred and five, a hundred and thirty-five, a hundred and sixty, a hundred and eighty nine, two-hundred and two. The car whined and roared in tandem, its twin-turbo chargers forcing massive amounts of compressed air into the carburettor, while its big-block power converting fuel, air and road into noise and excitement.  
"yahoooo" he screamed as the bear pushed two-hundred and ten, the noise coming from its tail-pipes astronomical, and as Danny shifted into the last gear, something happened that he had never felt before: The exhausts opened. Sound flooded through the car like a god's war cry. Each piston slamming their heads like battering rams on Asgaards walls'. A vacuum pulled the exhaust gasses from the bowels of the white-hot engine, and a sudden surge came from the back tires. The sound of the engine had dropped a few octaves since before; this was no longer for fun. As the tachometer kept creeping up, so did Danny's worry: two-twenty, two-thirty, how was the engine and more importantly the tires coping? Two-thirty-five he saw before he started pushing the brakes, carbon ceramics - so they wouldn't fail. The car lurched down the gears as it calmed and slowed; 'easy girl, easy' he thought to himself, as the beast's intercooler and Ram-air intakes desperately tried to cool its own choler. Braking harder, he could feel the new tires doing their job, gripping the dry ground and pulling the tachometer back down to more acceptable levels. Nervous laughter erupted from Danny's mouth and he patted the steering wheel with delight 'good girl, good girl' Danny's car was well-known in local drag-racing circles, but his latest addition; a VOE system from a 1970's Pontiac GTO, was unknown and until now, untested.  
The fact that the whole car was practically hand-built and scrounged made Danny even more proud of it, but the nature of the beast made it bad on fuel and incredibly loud, and some of the parts weren't exactly what the police would call; 'road worthy'. Even so, it handled and drove like an animal, sounded like a beast and went like a burnt cobra, the interior was brown and cream leather, and finished in steel and chrome, nothing could make it better.


	3. Chapter 3

As Danny pulled up outside Maggie's shooting hut, swung open the door and slammed it closed with precise force, before checking the brake disks for signs of heat damage and the tires for wear, as well as under the hood for signs of damage to the intakes and out-ports of the supercharger. Nothing, not a scratch; as flawless as always.  
He made sure to lock-up and keep it in the shade, as not to damage the paint or insides of the engine, and stepped into the shack to a familiar ring-ting of the doors' bell; he looked around the dank, wooden hut and called: "Maggie, you in? We need some more shells …and rounds for that matter" No reply. He called again; "Hey, Maggie, you up yet?! Come on, it's half twelve!" Urgently, he picked a thirty-two calibre revolver from the table nearest him, and some ammunition from under the counter. He asked again, more cautiously this time; "Maggie? Hello? Are you in here?" tapping the door to the back of the cabin carefully with the barrel of the gun, when no reply came he cocked the hammer slowly and held it in both hands firmly. He counted slowly in his head: 'One… two… three' before kicking the door heavily and bringing the revolver to bear. What Danny saw confirmed everything he and Jay had been preparing for. The window to the bedroom was smashed, and on the floor laid the small, pale body of Maggie McRae. A custom Colt M1911 lay on the floor next to her; definitely her own – he could see the intricate, monochrome stencilling and etched patterns of wolves and wild dogs along the barrel, and three, spent cases nestling themselves beneath her black, lace skirt. Three blood splatters covered the ceiling and walls, and a trail fled outside; she had shot and hit three times before being overcome. A definite chunk of her flesh was missing from her neck, her eyes lay blank inside their gaunt sockets, and blood ran down her black top. Danny turned away and felt his eyes tear-up slightly, Maggie had been one of the first friends he had made here, and to see her like this was… was heart-wrenching.

At that instant, he turned back around sharply and caught a glimpse of a piece of crumpled paper behind her body. Danny reached down and picked up the note, it read; 'Left door, 5894 Mx' even through the blood and bone shards he fondly remembered that handwriting on his first order to the plantations' basement. He turned away to the exit of the cabin and looked at the left-hand door under the counter, Danny slid open the plywood door and found a floor-mounted safe under the debris of a lifetimes' work. He turned the dial through the numbers and pulled the handle, the safe opened with a reassuring pop as the seal let precious fresh air into the chamber, as Danny pawed through the miscellaneous scrap of Maggie's safe he came to an expensive, wax-sealed letter hidden under everything else. He slid his finger under the flap and popped off the seal, before carefully unfolding the thick, ivory paper, the beautiful calligraphy mirroring her love of the arts, as Danny read the letter he started to well-up again; it told the owner that they had full reign over her stores, and a small cache of weapons hidden in the forests, as well as a map to the location. It was after he had finished the letter that he saw a small note in the bottom left corner: 'P.s. Good luck Danny, watch your back'. He smiled warmly and tucked the note into the top pocket of his jacket before grabbing a bin bag from under the counter and went around the small shack clearing shelves of ammunition, accessories and cleaning kits. Then, grabbing the revolver from his waistband, he smashed the glass cases behind the counter and retrieved an empty .22 bolt action rifle from its moorings, the paper tag secured to the top right of the case said: 'True, Colt Arms, .22 action chassis, no bolt, action, receiver or scope, able to mount suppressor $205'.  
"Perfect" Danny thought to himself, "Jay's been after one of these for donkey's years", the next case held an ominous, yet recognisable steel and wood automatic rifle; 'Avtomat Kalashnikova 47, 7.62x39mm, single-fire only, minor maintenance needed, comes with two empty STANAG magazines $3020'.  
"Come here gorgeous" he said as the butt of the revolver smashed the glass containing her. He tried to clear the chamber by cocking the action back, something was stuck, 'Maybe a little harder' as he propped the ancient rifle against his thigh and yanked the action back as hard as he physically could. Nothing, this was obviously going to take more than Russian force to fix, still worth taking however. The penultimate case held a fearsome, and somewhat alien-looking rifle in a SWAT black colour scheme; 'Tavor TAR-21 assault rifle, Israeli origin, select fire, previously used in Guatemalan defence force, 5.56x45mm NATO, no ammunition, $3000'  
"Could come in handy" Danny said to himself out loud "ammo could be a problem though, I'll have to look in the cache later on". The last case held a large and imposing, automatic rifle with a khaki colouring and a free-floating barrel; 'SOF Combat Assault Rifle Heavy designation (SCAR-H), 7.62x51mm NATO, Ex-SOCOM, select fire, heavy recoil, comes with 3 Magazines…'  
"Mine" he uttered bluntly; not needing to read the rest of the card, this weapon was a favourite of his, and he had wanted it ever since he had played war games as a kid. He hastily smashed the glass, slid the revolver back into his waistband and removed the precious rifle from the case. It felt glorious in his hands, the weight sat over the receiver, the handle felt soft and contoured in his hand. One quick look down the sights and he knew why he loved them so much; It's stock sat in his shoulder like a lover massaging his work-sodden muscles, he flipped the weapon on his left arm, and slid back the action. The internals moved like the well-oiled machine it was, with each click and ratchet sounding as fluid as the first. Suddenly, Danny's weapon-love was broken by the sudden feeling of someone else in the room.

He dropped the weapon carefully on its stock and reached for the revolver as quick as he dared, before spinning around and pointing the barrel at the hapless thing in the room with him. His eyes dropped like the rest of his features when his gaze met _hers. _"Maggie…." His voice sounded like a tiny pebble dropped into a well as it escaped his lips. "No… No…. NO…." he roared as his choler rose in equal measure with his sadness. A thousand voices screamed: 'it can't be happening' 'it's just a dream' 'she's not one of them', but every one of them was silenced in the indisputable fact that she stood like she was alive, only near-decapitated. Maggie moved unnaturally on the side of her feet and lurched toward Danny behind the counter as she feebly tried to steady herself with no real blood-flow to her legs. Her skin was a sickly shade of ivory, the normally welcoming face was replaced by a sick, alternate version: lop-sided, gaunt with disease, with a needle-tooth-filled maw. Danny was terrified, angry and desperate: three things that should not mix at a time. Pulling back the hammer on the revolver slowly, he raised the gun again, aimed at the grotesque parody of his dear friend. There was a terrible tension in the room as the defiled undead stared at the hopelessly lifeless. It wasn't Maggie, just a degenerate parasite using his friend as a macabre doll for its own ends. "Goodbye" he managed to mutter as he choked on tears, and squeezed the trigger. A huge flash erupted from the muzzle, as the weapon kicked back and spat a lump of hot lead at the being. It met the wet meat of its head and detonated the cranium like an apple. Cold, off-colour blood fell from the wounds and splashed the floorboards, and spattered Danny's hand.  
It felt almost as if it moved by itself, like it was trying to get into his body by any means, he rubbed off the debris with a rag and made sure not to miss any specks of blood, before igniting it with his lighter and throwing it to the floor like he had been told. It slapped the bloody woodwork like the high-five of two Olympic swimmers, but it was what Danny saw next that worried and intrigued him; slowly at first, the pool of dark crimson began to split and shift away from the flaming rag: It was alive.

"Holy crap it's true!" exclaimed Danny; long ago when he and Jay had decided to start preparing for the apocalypse, they had both read an article on a website of pooled Zombie research which had said that zombie blood, could well be 'self-mobile and respond to stimulation'. If the infected blood cells were infected with the basic, instinctual drives of amoeba: food, temperature, and reproduction, into a parasitic virus, the result would be a viral infection that would slowly convert any and all red blood cells into self-mobile oxygen and energy carriers, to feed the host's most instinctual brain centres. In effect; the blood would shut down all 'non-necessary bodily systems' in favour of digestion, movement, smell and hunting behaviours, by starving areas of oxygen until they died. If that were the case, then the blood would seem almost _afraid _of situations where it could be destroyed.  
'Oh god, this one's a biggy' thought Danny "I am definitely going to have to call Jay, I owe him twenty dollars" regretfully, he had to concede he was wrong about the method of infection; he always thought it would be a symbiotic infection from rogue prion proteins, but alas he couldn't be the expert in everything.


	4. Chapter 4

Throwing the gun-laden bin-bag over his shoulder, he kicked open the front door and traipsed across the soft, sandy gravel of the small parking lot up to the beast, before climbing in and lobbing the bag into the back seat, 'Probably should be more careful with so many dangerous items' thought Danny as the weight of steel, polymer and lead slumped in to the leather. He floored the mammoth engine as fast as he dared through the drag-strip-straight roads of the Florida plains, determined to make it back to Jay and the farm as fast as he could; the fate of him, his friends and his fellow survivors was at stake. Eight cylinders hammered and tore at their mounts, reciprocating as fast as Tatums' jabs', fuel poured into each well in vast squirts of liquid into a world of fire and clattering impacts, all whilst massive turbochargers whined and screamed, forcing air into the engine with the power of two, tiny, tornados. She was flying today, no problems at all, which was just what he needed for such an important run, white lines became a blur, and the miles turned into noise as they both roared and screamed through. 10:39 he was off the pace by a few miles, time to turn up the heat. Danny pushed down his foot even harder and switched up a gear; he was in unknown territory now. The DYNO wasn't strong enough to take this sort of torque, the noise was terrifying, and the speed astronomical, but still he kept going. The tachometer had given up long ago, and he feared the tires would too soon enough, but it wasn't a time to be cautious; still he floored it, hopping bumps in the road, keeping an eye out for the police, and trying to keep his nerve in the process. Passing what he thought were signs, he recognised where he was, and slowed for the entrance to the farm, still travelling faster than any super car; he threaded the car through the rough gates and shot up a loose drive to their illustrious home. Throwing all caution into the wind, he slid up to the door and jumped out into the house; "JAY, YOU BETTER FUCKING BE HERE" he screamed at the top his lungs, shortly before he noticed a yellow note on his laptop; 'Basement' it read. Diving out of the house again, grabbing the bag and locking up the car all whilst sprinting for a nearby red-wooded barn, Danny was moving faster than he had done in a long while. Sprinting as fast as his lungs would allow, his feet sank in the sandy earth, and what felt like the barrel of the Tavor poked him right in the kidneys repeatedly, until he got to the threshold of the barn and hurriedly scrambled for the key-hole in the floor, before sliding in the key, and hopping down into the inky depths.

The basement smelt like damp chemicals, wet dog, and motor oil mixed into a pungent aroma only found in the foundations of an abandoned cotton barn, as Jay walked down the hallway to the main auditorium he felt a fond familiarity to the cold, mossy walls and blue chem-lights affixed to the walls. It was quiet, not really clean, but it was pretty awesome, I mean who else could say they owned a secret, underground sanctuary and a massive farm? Apart from Hershel, or Bruce Wayne, but they were characters anyway. The dank corridor opened up into a larger room, still made from the same materials, only much more circular and brighter inside, thanks to the large halogen lights strung to the brick work and plugged into a small transformer in the corner. The room was still dank and fairly rank with odour, but it was out of the heat and prying eyes of whoever decided to come snooping, and it did at least afford the comfort of being private if nothing else. Jay rubbed his hands together and inhaled sharply, shortly before he realised that wasn't a good idea, and headed over to the right-most section of the room, pulling back the thick polythene chemical curtains of his work space, he cracked his knuckles and sat on his old wooden stool before examining the latest project; a pair of steel 'breaching paddles' as he had dubbed them. The idea was simple: a set of armatures fixed together much like a scissor-lift with strong steel paddles at one end, and hands at the other could be inserted into a door at the hinges, and simply squeeze off the doors' mountings by two people pushing heavily on the handles. Jay reached over to the radio and turned it on to a pre-programmed station, which blared contemporary rock out at a just-bearable level of static, helping to break up the monotony of 6 hours in the shop. Every piece of equipment and every tool was scattered around shelves and in large, tin boxes on the floor, which were ordered – to a point. In stark contrast; Danny's workstation was covered in half-made scraps of projects, pieces of failed projects covered in washers, screws and bolts of every size and shape imaginable. However, every tool was filed away meticulously and kept clean as possible, every project was laid out in a pattern of completion, and all screws had their own magnets where they sat, in order of removal, waiting to be replaced, underneath the wooden workbench stood large cans of drink, segregated into brown and black on the left, facing the white and blue on the opposite side. Jay could tell some, if not most of them were empty or half drank, but the combination of caffeine and alcohol had always perplexed him, as to how Danny could put away such vast amounts of diuretics and not have the need to piss every second for every hour he was down here. Jay turned back to the device he was working on and began tinkering furtively.


End file.
